Member Info for CeeD

Just wondering if it wouldn’t be better for GDP to invest in their own onsite tailings reprocessing plant?

This would not only save on the cost of the pipeline but GDP would keep all of the proceeds.

Having done some research, the recovery rate on 0.4 to 0.5 grams per ton tailings is 50 to 60 %. So, the much richer GDP tailings could have a 75% plus recovery rate. Accordingly, there is a fortune in that TSF and with GDP cash pile and most likely lease possibilities, having there own plant must be a realistic option.

Perhaps the reason that we haven’t heard about water permits and other TSF matters is that GDP are working on this alternative and better solution. Fingers crossed.

So, the sale on the Authentication business completes on 1st May at £300m and the Atlas bid is worth £263m. This values the remaining bank note business at negative £37m.

As far as I can see, there will be no special dividend from the proceeds of the Authentication sale. If there was going to be, then the share price would be well over £1.30.

Doesn’t look like a good deal for shareholders to me.

I did see that some platforms charged for the service but I had no idea that the cost to HL clients was £7,500 pa. Clearly, they don’t want anyone doing this.

The good news is that, according to the link within my post, some stock brokers do this for free as part of their service.

I am definitely going to make further enquiries and will report back.

When I saw the RNS with the results yesterday, I was curious as to why they had set out the number of people voting (in person or by proxy) at the court meeting. For those of you who haven’t seen it, there were

84 For and

37 Against

Well after doing some digging on the internet, I found out the reason. They needed a double major as set out below

A simple majority of the persons voting and a

75% majority by number of shares voted

What this means is that if another 47 ‘No’ voters had voted, even if they only had 1 share each, Patel would have lost.

I know what you are thinking. There are hundreds of us so how did it get through and, why were only 37 ‘No’ voters recorded? The problem is that the vast majority of us hold shares in nominee accounts. For example, A J Bell, is the legal owner of all of the Shanta shares held on its platforms. A J Bell may have hundreds or thousands of Shanta shareholders on its platform but A J Bell is just one voter!

This will shock you but, all we had to do was open Personal Crest Accounts (available through certain stockbrokers – see www.sharesoc.org/investor-academy/advanced-topics/personal-crest-accounts/ ), buy one or more Shanta shares each, through the personal account, and we would each have got a vote. Accordingly, we could have easily overwhelmed them with our numbers.

I cannot express how sick I feel by not picking up on this earlier.

Still, if we ever find ourselves in a similar position again, we will know what to do. This will certainly stop any new stitch-ups so, some good has come of this after all.

I checked this morning and found that I could but at 14.28p. This is a 4% discount to the offer price. If the offer goes through and it takes 3 months to get paid out, the shares are offering a 17% annualised return. I therefore suspect that the deal is far from certain.

I also own PAF which from 20th December 2033 has gone up by over 37% on no news apart from the gold price. This is way better than the Shanta performance over the offer period. Just goes to show that 14.85p is daylight robbery.

I am not sure what this all means. It may just apply to shareholders that own shares in their own name and not via a platform. My guess is that each platform sets its own cut off date, collates are the votes and then submits a list of for, against, abstains and did not vote. Accordingly, there is a real danger that a shareholder’s no vote will not be carried forward and a did not vote will be recorded instead.

Just voted No on A J Bell

Harrogate is correct. My bad.

It was Konwave AG that bought the near 2% stake yesterday.

This is big news. Konwave are long term specialist gold mining investors.

As I posted yesterday, I think there are more twists and turns ahead.

Hi Marty,

Well done on establishing contact.

With Q4 / Full Year results due on 29th March there will be barely enough time to consider these before the Court Meeting on 4th April given, especially that PI have to vote in advance of the Court Meeting date anyway.

Accordingly, I would like to see a further postponement of the Court Meeting or at the very least a directive from the Panel that the Court Meeting cannot go ahead unless the results are issued to the Market as scheduled on 29th March.

In the absence of a market announcement of results we would be in the crazy position of Bidco (via Patel) having more information than the company’s shareholders.

Good luck with your phone call.

Someone one bought nearly 2% of the company in one trade earlier today. This seemed to spark a run of purchases but, the share price hasn’t changed. All very strange.

Watch the RNS news and share price. I am beginning to think that there could be an unexpected turn of events here.

Well done everyone for holding on! I am convinced that our collective resolve made all the difference.

I will be voting no again and will hold out to the bitter end.

The next point of interest is will we get the Q4 / FY numbers on 29th of March or will they be delayed until after or just before the vote?

Finally, I would just like to share something of interest that may be worth knowing. The last form 8.3 issued related to a purchase of 250,000 shares made by Samson Rock on 14th March; five days ahead of the “improved” offer. What I am suggesting is that the absence of transactions by big shareholders was a surefire indicator that they were in possession of insider information (i.e. the new offer) and were therefore unable to trade. So, if a similar situation arises in the future, on any share, it might well be worth taking a punt and buying more. A buy the “lull” in big shareholder activity strategy.

I have just checked the secure messages I received from A J Bell regarding the adjourned Court and General Meeting. They contain a link to the RNS issued by Shanta confirming that the meetings have been adjourned. This RNS states

” As disclosed in the Adjournment Announcement, it is expected that the adjourned Meetings will be reconvened and held on 28 March 2024 and a further announcement detailing the timetable in relation to the adjourned Meetings will follow in due course”

Since no announcement detailing the timetable has been made, I am wondering if A J Bell has jumped the gun? The message expresses an expectation only; not a certainty.

Does anyone have any better information? It seems to me that no new vote has actually been called.

Previous elections remain valid.

I have just been asked to vote again on A J Bell. Seems as though the court meeting is going ahead on 28/3/24.

Technically, as the vote has not yet taken place, the offer has not failed. So, until the vote happens, the Patels are still in with a chance. They could still win if there was a market collapse or the price of gold fell heavily.

There is a big crunch coming at the end of this month though. Last year, the 4th quarter and 2022 full year results were given on 29th March. Accordingly, the market is expecting the corresponding 2023 numbers by the 29th March 2024. The BOD cannot delay the numbers without giving a reason. They will also need to update the market on the postponed court meeting.

Another issue is that the “independent” advice that the directors took before recommending the offer may well need to be revisited if the BOD wish to maintain their “accept” recommendation. There has been a material the increase in the average gold price since the advice was prepared. Arguably, this invalidates the original advice but, if the 2023 numbers are good there is no way that the BOD can maintain an “accept” recommendation without an updated report.

All in all, pressure is building on the BOD and it won’t be long before something cracks. We just need to remain patient and enjoy watching them squirm.

Assuming that they need to give 21 day’s notice of a court meeting, there will be no court meeting in March unless they issue an RNS today.

If there is to be no court meeting then the board of directors need to notify the market.

Thanks for the tips.

I will be sticking it out to the end though. The fact that the hedge funds have piled in and continue to accumulate has strengthened my resolve. We have won round one, now on to total victory! Or, I will go down with the ship.

This is easy for the company to rectify. They just need to advise shareholders what the feedback was.

I suppose that if all of the independent directors never wanted to work again then in theory they could risk the shares being delisted. In the real world though, there is no chance that the bod would risk the wroth of all of the institutions invested in their company just to help their Patel mate out.

Thanks for your opinion though. The more people thinking about things the better.

Just been looking at the Aim Regulations. Paragraph 10. Includes the following

“An AIM company must take reasonable care to ensure that any information it notifies is not misleading, false or deceptive and does not omit anything likely to affect the import of such information”

On the 29th February Shanta advised that following feedback received from shareholders in connection with the scheme, the Court and General Meetings would be adjourned. Shanta did not advise what the feedback received was.

It could have been, for example, related to a technical issue with timings or something, or it could have been that the offer price was unacceptable or, the feedback could have taken the form of a large number of proxy votes against the scheme.

My point is that without knowing what the feedback was, shareholders are unable to gauge the import of the decision to adjourn the meetings. The announcement might be highly price sensitive (the offer will fail unless it is increased) or not at all price sensitive (it’s just an administration matter). Accordingly, there has been an omission likely to affect the import of the announcement; a breach of paragraph 10.

Someone had an email address for Aim complaints. If anyone can let me know what it is, I will send in this complaint. Any pressure we can put on the board can only be good.